smitty »

Pulp fiction?
Two genres I can live without, and for the same reason: porn and horror. Neither depict the human condition in a way I think helpful.
Not to be puritanical, but I think porn demotes sex to aerobic activity.

Speaking of which — where is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original 1971 film not the Johnny Depp remake) and Phantom of the Paradise? In the case of the former, at least, it has a sizable following of the sort that make up audiences for cult films (gays, goths, hipsters), and the latter, if not actually one many people remember, certainly has all the (awful, awful) ingredients for cult filmage: over-the-top “acting,” cheesy plot straight out of… well, it’s more or less the same plot as “Phantom of the Opera” only Seventy’d up– and Paul Williams. Remember Paul Williams? He wrote all those songs, but he looked like a human troll. Naturally, in the Seventies, he was a movie star.

I don’t think it has to be good, or even technically qualify as a story, I just think it has to be something that, for whatever reasons, never gained mainstream popularity but did gain enough of a tiny niche with enough people that it still gets watched years or decades after it was made.

Although this still really doesn’t explain the blockbusters on the list.